Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Harsanyi on the stimulus

Author and Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi is like myself, very skeptical about Barack Obama's stimulus bill. He calls it the "The biggest con — ever."

Democrats have concocted a surefire political victory. They've
notified America that the so-called "stimulus" bill might take a long
time to work — which is exceptionally handy, considering we always
come out of a recession at some point.

The problem is there is no evidence that colossal government spending
and expansion will help a nation claw its way out of economic trouble
or, more importantly, generate a single job through real economic
growth.

So what do you do with an unproven idea? Well, you go big. Make the
proposal the most expensive to ever adorn paper — or, more precisely,
a trillion scraps of paper. Scare the holy living hell out of
detractors with doomsday scenarios worthy of Nostradamus.

And for God's sake, unite! Those pikers in Congress can do a lot
better than $825 billion. Surely there are more states to bribe, more
special interests to reward, more unions to pacify?

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